Word

Awesome folks to check out

Thanks to a comment on the new year's chicken post, I just learned about a group dedicated to the kind of work that is already vital and that will be increasingly so in the coming hard times: Salem Locavores!

Friends of Straub: Free talk on Biomimicry, this Thursday 1/29

This Week!

2008-09 FSELC Lecture Series: Denise DeLuca

"Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature"

Thursday, January 29^th, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Loucks Auditorium, Salem Public Library, 585 Liberty Street SE, Salem

Free!

Solar cells that mimic leaves. Superglues from barnacles. Businesses that run like a redwood forest. Denise DeLuca will talk about the emerging science of biomimicry and give examples of technological and design innovations adapted from nature. A civil engineer, DeLuca is the Outreach Director for the Biomimicry Institute. Join us Thursday to hear about this fascinating topic.

More on RePowering Oregon

Especially easy for Salem area folks:

Implement Global Warming Solutions
RePower Oregon 2009 Campaign Rollout - Tuesday, January 27th

Join the diverse and growing coalition of Oregonians calling for immediate action on Global Warming. Attendees will include Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, former Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, state legislators, and Oregonians from the business, faith, low-income, and environmental communities.

12-1, Press event in House Room 50. Stick around after the event to connect with campaign organizers and get involved.

3pm, Joint Committee for Environment and Natural Resources Legislative Hearing on Global Warming

RePower Oregon Lobby Day - Tuesday, February 10th

Take the opportunity to travel to Salem and learn how to most effectively lobby your legislator on fighting against global warming.

For more information contact Seth Moore at 503-278-1577.

Keizer Area Transit Advocates -- Step Up!

I just want to let you know so, that you could let others know, that I am not going for re-elect to the Transit Board this May for Keizer #2. [Districts map here.]

I encourage others that would like to help improve the transit service and its image to go for the position.

Anyone interested or have questions can contact me 503-949-1249 or Allan Pollack the Transit General Manager

Hersch Sangster

Repower Oregon! (Healthy Climate Partnership)

You may have seen a flyer around with that headline -- if you didn't go, you missed the meeting on January 21. The website (where I found the quoted text below) is only half done -- with luck there will soon be a lot more activity and organizing.

Here's what they're selling. In a nutshell, it's: Good Jobs. Clean Energy. A Better Future.
In expanded form, it's:

The pitch

Two big challenges – a major recession and creating a clean energy future – share a common set of solutions with enormous opportunities for Oregon families and communities:

• A cap on global warming pollution to transition to a clean energy economy and protect our children’s legacy.
  
  
• Renewable energy to reduce our dependence on dirty coal and foreign oil.
  
  
• Energy efficiency for homes and businesses to jumpstart the economy and cut energy bills.
  
  
• Smart transportation choices to reduce congestion and gas bills and make healthier communities.

With the right investments and policies, we can put Oregon’s economy back on track. We can create thousands of good jobs while protecting existing industries and vulnerable communities. And we can position Oregon to be a global leader in the transition to a clean energy future.

And here's who "they" are:

Partners

Oregon Environmental Council

For over 40 years, the Oregon Environmental Council staff and volunteers have worked across the state to advocate on behalf of all Oregonians. Their notable results have made Oregon a healthier, cleaner place for all of us, and for the generations to come.

Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon

The CUB mission is simple: to represent you, the residential utility customer. The Citizens' Utility Board of Oregon is the only group in the state funded by Oregon ratepayers to challenge rate increases and other matters brought before the Public Utility Commission and State Legislature by the private utility companies.

1000 Friends of Oregon

1000 Friends of Oregon was founded in 1975 by Governor Tom McCall and Henry Richmond as the citizens’ voice for sound land use planning. Their goal was to protect Oregon’s quality of life from the effects of uncontrolled growth, using the tools of Senate Bill 100, passed in 1973.

Climate Solutions

Climate Solutions' mission is to accelerate practical and profitable solutions to global warming by galvanizing leadership, growing investment and bridging divides.

Environment Oregon

Environment Oregon, the new home of OSPIRG's environmental work, is a statewide, citizen-based environmental advocacy organization. Their professional staff combines independent research, practical ideas and tough-minded advocacy to overcome the opposition of powerful special interests and win real results for Oregon's environment. Environment Oregon draws on 30 years of success in tackling our state's top environmental problems.

Oregon League of Conservation Voters

The Oregon League of Conservation Voters is a non-partisan organization with a simple mission: educate voters about how their legislators vote on the environment and to hold these legislators accountable. OLCV has more than 3,000 members across the state and is recognized as a strong leader and effective watchdog for the environment.

Renewable Northwest Project

In 1994, a broad coalition of public-interest organizations and energy companies created the Renewable Northwest Project (RNP) to actively promote development of the region's untapped renewable resources. RNP has proven to be a forceful advocate for expanding solar, wind and geothermal energy in the Northwest.

That's a fairly predictable grouping and a deep base of experience in working on environmental issues through the usual paradigm of trading needed reforms off against "being reasonable." The question is whether this group can catalyze a reaction that is either fast or radical enough to keep up with the fast-changing climate science and the ever-worsening situation in the physical world. That's the problem: climate change is a wicked problem, because our actions today and in the next few years are going to cast the dice for 40s, 50s and even into the 80s (2080s, that is) -- and we're not even fully aware of the reality now. We're watching the polar ice set records nearly every month now -- it melts faster, re-forms thinner, and reduces its overall extent inexorably, year by year, reducing earth's heat-reflecting ice cover and warming the oceans --- and threatening to unleash a massive positive-feedback loop at some unknown temperature that we may conceivably hit soon . . . or be approaching.

We're the blind men driving the Cadillac at high speed in the elementary school zone, that's for sure . . . even if we don't kill ourselves, we're going to put a serious hurt on the future generations.

So if you want to help answer President Obama's call to arms in his inaugural, working with this group might be just the ticket.

If you want more information sooner, you can reach Courtney at 408-505-2764 or courtney@hcporegon.org.

Bike Helmets, People!

Yikes!

Yikes again!

Unsolicited Plug (UP) 1 -- First in a new series

Well, with the economy coming unglued and the next big wave of bank failures due any second (a wave much bigger than the ones we've seen so far), we're going to have to re-learn just how important it is to support those small, locally owned businesses that are essential to creating a vibrant and livable community.

Salem has some real gems amidst the sea of generica, and LOVESalem is going to start plugging some of these, albeit not systematically. That is, this isn't an advertising deal, but in the nature of a reminder that, if you want these to stay open, you need to find your way to them now and again when you need something in their line.

The first UP (unsolicited plug) is for a little hole-in-the-wall bakery on the north block of State St. between Front and Commercial, Cascade Baking Company. This superb bakery uses a wonderful wheat flour grown and milled here in the Northwest, "Shepard's Grain," which is grown by a cooperative of family farmers in Oregon and Washington using sustainable ag practices (most significantly, no-till, meaning that the dry, dusty winds of the Palouse don't send the topsoil into the air, because the ground is never scraped off for planting).

Also, it's got a great flavor. You can buy Cascade's breads at the store or at the Salem Saturday Market (which would be getting an unsolicited plug now, if it weren't closed until May, sniff, sniff), and you can sample it several restaurants in town that I know of.

Anyway, scope out the lovely array of breads that are baked fresh right here in Salem, using responsibly grown wheat.

Now, you can definitely find cheaper bread, and if calories per dollar is your only standard, then you will not only miss the health benefits of eating better food but you will miss helping a local business thrive and continue to enrich your home. Skip a latte sometime and put that together with what you usually spend on factory bread and get a loaf of real bread at Cascade -- you'll love it. (Alas, not much for the gluten intolerant!)

Morning in America, Take II (Toles)

Polls call for transit, maintenance, not more roads

Most Americans Want Stimulus to Emphasize Road and Bridge Repair and Transit,

Not New Road Construction, Poll Finds

Majority says funded projects should advance national goals, such as energy independence, in addition to creating jobs

WASHINGTON (January 15, 2009) – As Congress takes up debate over an economic stimulus package, a new poll shows that most Americans would rather use federal dollars to repair highways and bridges and improve public transportation than expand highways through new construction.

In addition, fully 80 percent of respondents said stimulus investments should not only create jobs, but also help the goals of reducing oil dependency, improving the environment and increasing transportation options, even if the job creation took longer. Only 20 percent agreed that stimulus funds should include only "road and bridge projects that can be started right away and create an immediate boost to the economy".

The stimulus questions were included in the 2009 Growth and Transportation Survey sponsored by the National Association of Realtors^® and Transportation for America, and conducted Jan 5-7.

An overwhelming 80 percent believe it is more important that a stimulus plan include efforts to repair existing highways and public transit rather than build new highways. Forty-five percent of those polled said construction of highways should "definitely" or "probably" not be included in the plan.

Americans Prefer to Spend More on Mass Transit

. . .

The survey shows that Americans want Congress and the incoming administration to factor plans for reducing dependence on foreign oil, improving the environment, and increasing transportation choices into the stimulus package currently in development, even if it temporarily delays job creation.

Americans are also very interested in energy conservation. Eighty-nine percent agreed that transportation investments should support the goals of reducing energy use, with 58 percent agreeing strongly. Three in four of those polled also want the stimulus plan to support the reduction of carbon emissions that lead to global warming and climate change.

The telephone survey of 1,005 adults living in the U.S. was conducted by Hart Research Associates Jan. 5-7. The study has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Transportation for America (T4America.org) is a big-tent coalition of housing, real estate, environmental, public health, urban planning, transportation and other organizations.

"We believe it is possible to invest the stimulus money both wisely and quickly," said Geoff Anderson, co-chair of Transportation for America. "Because this is a down-payment on long term economic stability, it is critical that we don't just throw money at our problems. Voters are clearly asking that Congress and the Administration line up our investments with important national goals."